Part 14

He smiled grimly, thinking of Charter. Had he come here to do Charter's bidding after all? But he was resolved to go on. "Thank you," he said, "I have, it seems, the beggar's meed--pity! Yet I feel that my very presence here must be hateful to you. I've traded on your generosity, your womanliness, even your pity. I've felt at times that I'd be content to be a dog on your hearth-rug, but it's not so now. Every day I'm with you I grow to love you more deeply--"

She turned to interrupt him but he held up a protesting hand. "Let me finish. I know my love's hideous to you, but, none the less, I love you for your sweetness, your justice, your kindness, and at last a spark of generosity has been born in my own heart. I've been a good deal of a scoundrel, Rachel; I can plead no decent excuse, but there's enough manhood in me to feel that I've got to set you free."

A sudden hope, keen as joy, leaped in her heart for an instant, only to pass into eclipse. "It's impossible without ruining Eva. I did it myself, I dreaded the public scandal for her; it's just as much my fault, in a way, as yours."

"There are ways that involve but little scandal."

Rachel sat looking at the fire. Her heart cried out again; she desired happiness as fiercely as the most unreasoning child of circumstance, but she remembered the obligations that had led to her sacrifice.

"It would be the end for Eva. Besides," she hesitated, "perhaps you don't understand how I feel about marriage--I don't think I've got a right to get a divorce. I knew what I was doing. You've blamed yourself; have you ever thought of the wrong I did?"

"You?" He looked at her amazed, and encountering her eyes, that had the sweet, abashed look of a frightened girl, a sudden wild hope leaped up. "You mean you consider your marriage too sacred to break?"

She inclined her head.

He drew a quick breath. "Rachel!" then the sight of her face, stricken with grief and reluctance, brought him back to his senses. "I see, you mean from the religious point of view. I've always understood that; I knew you had scruples."

"I've always abhorred the light view, as if it wasn't sacred at all. I know, I feel I wronged you when I married you. I haven't any right to bring discredit on you by a divorce, unless--" she looked up gravely--"if you wish to be free to--to find happiness elsewhere, then I don't think I'd have the same right to--to insist on bearing my share of it."

He met her eyes directly; his own face blanched. "You forget that I love you!" he said slowly.

She colored painfully. "That's another thing that lies heavy on my soul. I had no right to marry you--forgive me!"

"Rachel, could you ever--have loved me?"

She covered her face with her hands; she was thinking of Charter. "N-no."

Belhaven still regarded her. He thought that she really abhorred him and the idea stung him. He had traveled the long road, he had reached the end of it, and met disaster and defeat. "You've refused divorce," he said, in a strange voice, "yet you despise me. I suppose I'm a very toad in your sight, but you would still save Eva! You're right, I accept your wishes, but--there are other ways."

She did not understand him; she still hid her face, shutting out the horror of the situation. Eva's lover as her husband! She could not bring herself to speak to him.

"There are other ways," he repeated quietly, "but, for your sake, I wish it wasn't so hard. I wish I could lighten it, Rachel."

"In a way you've done much to lighten it. I'm--I'm grateful."

He stood looking at her bowed head, remembering grimly that the thought of his love had made her shudder as he had seen women shudder at the sight of a reptile. Then he turned and went out without another word.

It was a long time after that before Rachel seemed to be aware of sounds and movements in the house. She had remained where Belhaven left her, looking into the fire, her chin in her hand. Her gray eyes, lit by the glow of the falling embers, were intent on some distant thought, her gaze full of introspection; she saw nothing in the room and, for a while, heard nothing. She seemed to have been dragged through an endless chain of events, a series of agonizing scenes. She was no longer what she had been a week ago, or even yesterday; she seemed suddenly separated from herself, or was rather a new self, born of suffering and joy,--the joy of feeling that Charter knew,--and looking back at her old self,--the self of slow growth, of childhood and girlhood and womanhood. She had, indeed, been born again in anguish. She had renounced her own happiness, and what had she gained? In that dreadful moment she felt that she had not even gained her own salvation, for the awful feeling of complicity in their guilt remained. She and Eva and Belhaven had wretchedly cheated Astry; it was to Astry that she owed the inexorable debt. If she could only feel that she had saved Eva, brought her back to her husband!

Then came the temptation to escape from her sacrifice, to nullify her act by accepting the first means of escape. Her heart clamored for happiness and her love for Charter rebelled against all scruples. What right had she to make Charter unhappy? There is no argument so subtle, so unanswerable as the argument of love. Her own heart cried out against her judgment; it would gladly have broken her bonds and stultified her sacrifice. She thought that it would be easier to bear if Charter knew, but it was a million times harder, for Charter rebelled against it. Charter, who was good, saw no virtue in her self-immolation; he, too, craved happiness. While Belhaven had offered her divorce, at the cost, as she saw, of great personal misery, he had offered her freedom. Her presence in the house had become dear to him; her kindness, her quick sympathy, her womanliness, had penetrated the armor of his worldliness and, at last, his soul had risen to meet hers in an act of self-sacrifice. Though she did not know it, she had gone far to save Belhaven. It would have been natural for her to have despised him, to have let him feel himself outside of her life, the cause of all, but she had not despised him, she had been gentle and forbearing, and he had seen new and charming qualities in her simplicity.

If Rachel could have known this, it would have comforted her a little, but she had not even that small comfort as she sat brooding over the fire. This was the Thursday of the dinner at the Astrys' and Belhaven had reluctantly promised to go, for there were many reasons that made him careful of the conventionalities; Rachel had dined alone and early.

A big fire leaped in the old-fashioned chimney and there was a rich and luxurious glow of color and light; the heavy, crimson curtains were drawn over the windows, but it was storming outside, and she heard the sleet on the window-panes. The wind shouted under the old gables. Rachel went to a window and looked out; it was still light enough to discern the cedars beaten by the gale. An old hemlock near the house stretched spectral arms, sheeted in ice. The gray veil of fog and rain cloaked the long slope of the landscape, and she could not discover the distant city. It grew dark fast. She let the curtain fall across the sash again and went to the fire, stretching out both hands to the blaze with a shiver. A strange feeling of uneasiness stirred in her heart, some vague forewarning; delicate and floating like a tendril, it trembled back again into uncertainty.

She opened a book at random and began to read. It chanced to be a life of St. Francis of Assisi, exquisitely illuminated, that Belhaven had picked up for its artistic setting rather than its religious teachings, for he was something of a connoisseur in books.

Rachel turned the leaf.

"Never set an empty pot to boil on the fire, in hope that your neighbor will fill it!" ran the proverb.

She sighed. Had not Belhaven set his empty heart on the fire with the hope that she would fill it for him? And she had not. In this, then, Brother Giles understood the world; evidently he entertained no hope for the filling of the pot.

Rachel turned the page, her fingers trembling slightly.

"And they twain ate the pottage of flour by reason of his importunate charity. And they were refreshed much more by devotion than by the food."

"And they twain ate of the pottage--" and she and Belhaven had eaten of it to their despair. They had not been refreshed by devotion, they had eaten it of necessity; had she found the key at last? They had eaten the pottage and the taste of it was very bitter. Rachel leaned forward and looked into the fire, where the red embers fell and the flame continued to leap merrily.

"And they twain ate the pottage."

She heard the outer door open and close and a step come across the hall. She turned sharply; some one had braved the storm. It was Astry.

He stood in the door looking at her, as Belhaven had done. His fur coat was thrown back and disclosed his evening dress; his face, as usual, was pale and fair.

"I came for Belhaven," he said.

Rachel was surprised. "He's getting ready now; I thought the hour was eight."

"It is, but I was determined to have no failures and I particularly want Belhaven; you know he didn't want to come."

"Has any one failed you?"

"Only Mrs. Billop."

She smiled involuntarily. "Eva won't regret that."

"There are special dispensations. I don't see why we keep on inviting those creatures unless it is because they're related to Paul. I suppose Belhaven really means to come; it isn't informal enough to let him off, you know."

"There seems to be no question about his coming."

Astry smiled again. "My dear Rachel," he said carelessly, "there might be a question about it; if I were Belhaven there would be a question about it."

She colored and Astry saw that she understood.

"Even an Arab has a right to protection; his bread and salt should not be abused," he said, watching her.

"But his bread and salt protect the life of the stranger who tastes them," she answered quickly.

Astry smiled bitterly. "I never thought of you as one to plead for the transgressor."

Rachel put the little book down on the table and sat looking at him with grave eyes, her heart throbbing heavily. Had Eva told him or--some one else?

He came over and stood beside her. "Rachel, I'm deeply sorry that there seems no way out, that you've got to bear it--or else your sacrifice goes for nothing."

"You mean--" she could not go on.

"Eva has told me."

Rachel sank back in her chair, her hands trembling in her lap. "Johnstone--you've forgiven her?"

He had averted his face and she saw only the outlines of the strong, lithe figure and fine head. There was a brief significant pause, then he turned, and Rachel saw the wreck of happiness in his face.

"I've tried to."

She hid her own face in her hands; the relief was intense that the concealment was over! Astry turned and walked twice across the room.

"Why didn't you let me kill him that night?"

"I couldn't--and I had to save Eva."

"That would have saved her and he--he needed killing!"

Rachel's hands fell in her lap again; she looked at him gravely, her face tear-stained and pale. "Would it have saved the poor child to have destroyed her name, to murder a man, and hang for it yourself?"

He was silenced.

"That was it, that is what you would have done, Johnstone, and I had to save you both. I did wrong, I've suffered for it, but oh, thank God, Eva's told you the truth!"

"Rachel, I've felt, and I know Eva feels, that we've no right to accept your sacrifice; we want to set you free even at the price of scandal. Eva begs me to set you free, but--"

"You see how it is? If I get a divorce it will ruin Eva."

"I see how it is, otherwise I'd shoot that fellow now, but I can't touch him without injury to you both. Yet--my God, Rachel, I've no right to hold you to it."

"You don't. I feel so differently from you about it, you don't understand. I can't break the marriage; I've got to take the punishment, for I did it myself. I've got to keep my contract."

"You mean that your scruples won't permit you to break it?"

"Don't you understand? I was wrong to do it; I see it. I did it to save Eva, but I had no right to take the vows as I did. I dare not break them."

"Do you mean you're afraid of the scandal, or the odium of it all?"

"I'll have to be very plain--I'm afraid of God."

He stood looking at her a while in silence. Then his face changed and softened.

"Like Felix, I'm almost persuaded," he said.

Rachel made a slight deprecating gesture. "Would I have made this sacrifice if I'd contemplated making it void?"

He reflected. "I suppose not; you're a singular woman."

"I'm singularly placed."

He walked to and fro again. Rachel, meanwhile, heard Belhaven slowly descending the stairs.

"Johnstone, you--you don't mean to quarrel with him now?"

"I've told you I can't; he's safe enough."

"I'm thankful for that!"

Astry stood still, regarding her earnestly, his heavy pale eyes seeming to concentrate thought.

"You're unhappy."

She turned away. "Pardon me, we've said enough."

"I accept my rebuke as I long ago accepted my _congé_," he said gently. "Nevertheless you're wretched, and you've been a good angel to Eva; I owe about all I've got left to you."

Her lips quivered. "Please don't!"

He looked at her strangely. "I've been a brute, I've always been a brute, and I've hurt you again. I feel as if we'd trapped you, Rachel; can you forgive us?"

She looked beyond him, struggling to regain her composure, and she heard the wind shouting under the gables while the rain leaped against the window-panes. She could not answer Astry and before he spoke again Belhaven came to the door.

"I heard you were waiting for me, Astry; it's certainly obliging to go after your guests in such a storm. The rain's turning into snow and sleet."

"My dear Belhaven," said Astry easily, "I particularly wanted you. I have a word to say to you beforehand."

Belhaven glanced keenly from Astry to Rachel.

"I've no intentions of shirking my responsibilities," he said. "You'll find me ready."

Astry turned. "Then we'd better be off. Good night, Rachel."

She made no reply but as she looked up she met Belhaven's eyes and they were full of regret, of kindness, of appeal. The glance was fleeting; the next moment both men went out into the night and she heard the stir and jar of the motor-car as it started, backed, and finally whirled down the road. She could not resist the impulse to push aside the curtain and look out after it. Reluctant as she was to think of it, she could not dismiss that glance into oblivion; it was the look of a man mortally hurt.

The window-pane was covered now with frost and she had to breathe on it before she could clear a space to see out into the stormy night. Away in the distance were the retreating lights of Astry's big car, like monster eyes, growing smaller and smaller until she saw them no more. A gust of wind swayed the trees and swept the branches low across the front of the house and there was a sudden rush of snowflakes. She drew back a little and was on the point of returning to her chair when she saw a figure coming swiftly up the path from the gate, and something in the bearing, the quick, determined step, made her start and drop the curtain again. She went hastily to the hearth and stood there shivering, holding her hands out to the blaze, and her heart seemed to stop beating while she listened.

She heard the servant going past the door to answer the bell and, after an interval, she knew some one was coming across the hall.

XIX

She had not regained control of herself when Charter entered the room but she turned and faced him with something as near a greeting as she was able to achieve. It was almost a shock to her to see him looking so splendidly well and strong and fearless after that other look that haunted her in the eyes of the man she had married.

"I thought Belhaven was here," he said abruptly. "I told him I was coming but your man says he's gone over to Astry's already."

"Johnstone came for him," she managed to say. "I--aren't you going too?"

"I suppose I've got to. I promised because I thought I'd see you there. I didn't want to come here; you see, I've told him."

Rachel colored. "You told--Belhaven?"

"That I loved you and I wouldn't let him keep you here like this."

She sank into the nearest chair, looking at him weakly. "Oh, John!"

"Well, it's true, isn't it? You wouldn't want me to sneak into the house without his knowing it?"

"I don't think you ought to come really; that's just it, John, we've lost everything."

He was indignant. "We haven't. I won't stand it, Rachel; it's ridiculous. He's trading on your generosity; he--why, he almost admitted it to me!"

Rachel leaned back in the chair, her head sinking into the cushions; she felt almost as if she might swoon. "John, he's just offered to set me free."

Charter swung around and looked at her, his face changing.

"Good! Then there's a spark in him. I thought he--well, I told him what I thought!"

She remembered Belhaven's face with a sudden illumination of mind. If Charter had told him what he thought of him perhaps it was no wonder he looked like that!

"I--I wish you hadn't!"

"Rachel," he stopped in his walk and bent over her, trembling, "is it possible you're half in love with him now?"

"No, no!"

"Then--oh, my dear, my dear, we'll get you free yet! Rachel, my darling!"

She let him hold her hands close but the tears were running down her face.

"John, I told him I wouldn't take it!"

"You told him you wouldn't take your freedom?" His tone was incredulous, dumbfounded.

She had only enough voice to murmur: "I--I can't!"

He dropped her hands and sprang up. "You don't care a pin for me! You love him!"

She could not endure that. "I don't, but--oh, can't you see? How can I? I did it myself--he's done nothing since; what right have I to make all this scandal just--just to be happy? Isn't there something higher? I've--I've got to take my punishment."

He looked at her with a set face, blanched until the tan showed in a band across his brow and cheeks.

"And how about me? Am I to be punished too?"

She got up then and went to him and put her arms around his neck; he felt her shivering from head to foot. "John, do you want to kill me? I can't bear any more. You know I love you. I'm trying hard to do the right thing just because I have to; I've been almost wicked in thinking of it, but now, John--you've got to go."

"See here, Rachel, I've always tried to be straight, to be honest, but I'm a scoundrel now. I told Belhaven I was making love to you and I am. I'd--I'd take you away with me this minute if you'd go! He'd get a divorce then."

She smiled faintly, looking up at his drawn face. "No, you wouldn't, you'd never do it,--when you thought of it, John,--because--I think you love me."

"That's what causes it--I mean elopements, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "No, because when a man really loves a woman he won't dishonor her."

"Well, that's why I've let you stay here. If it wasn't for that I'd have taken that--that fellow and thrown him in the river and carried you off. Rachel, I won't give you up!"

She slipped out of his arms again and made her way uncertainly back to her seat. "You've got to go over there now, John."

"To Astry's?" He glanced at the clock. "I've got ten minutes and I'm not sure I'll go at all."

She made a queer little gesture with her hands, as if she fought for breath, but he did not see it.

"You've got to go," she said gently, "because--because I can't have you here any longer. We're not in our senses to-night; we can't talk it over."

"You told me to go before, but what good did it do? We're no better off, we won't be any better off, until I make him give you up."

"I've set myself up to be good, I've made him think me so; he believes in me, but you--I see you don't, John."

His amazement made him swing around and stare at her blankly. "What do you mean?"

"If you believed in me--even a little bit--you'd see that I've got to do the right thing."

"I believe in you so much that I think you're too good; you're sacrificing yourself and you're sacrificing me too for an idea. I've got to the point where I don't care a fig for ideas; it doesn't matter to me if they did make you stand up and marry that--marry him--to save Eva. I'd like to smash everything out of my way; I want to set you free, I must!"

"You can't--there's no way out. I've just got to be punished!"

"For what, pray? For being an angel to your sister? For pitying that--that fellow?"

"No, for marrying him just because--"

"Because what?"

"Because I thought you loved some one else."

"Good Lord!"

"Well, that's it. I'm just as wicked and silly as that!"

"Look here, Rachel, this kills me! I did it, I was the fool, the lumpkin, the gumpy, who couldn't write a decent letter. I can't see why you didn't know!"

"Oh!" she wrung her hands together hysterically, "how can you? Can't you see that no woman could know? But that's no excuse. I did it and I've just got to suffer for it; I can't ruin my sister now!"

He did not reply, he could not, without risk of consigning Eva to that limbo of forgetfulness to which furious men assign unworthy objects. He planted himself firmly opposite to her, looking like a tower of strength, his face still blanched but his blue eyes kindled.

"I swear I won't give you up. I told him so too."

"To-day?"

"The other day. I told him to-day I was coming here before I went to Astry's. I told him after I found out you weren't going there. I thought I should meet you; I didn't want to come into his house, but I had to."

She looked down thoughtfully, clasping her hands again.